heaps, black olives, figs strung together upon a rush, rice, pipes with amber mouth-pieces and brown clay bowls, rich stuffs, and silverchased pistols, dirks, belts, and embroidered waistcoats,-these are the varied objects, which a rapid glance along this street presents to the spectator. "The objects which are not to be found here, as well as those which are, ought not to be neglected in this description. Here there are no books, no lamps, no windows, no carriages, no newspapers, no postoffice. The letters which arrived here a few days since from Napoli, after having been publicly cried in the streets, if they were not claimed by the parties to whom they were addressed, were committed to the flames. "Such is the present condition of Athens, as far as its streets speak of its condition. The city is still in the hands of the Turks. *** The Muezzin still mounts the scaffold in the bazar here to call the Mussulmen to prayer at the stated hours; a few Turks still doze in the archways of the Acropolis, or recline while smoking their pipes, and leaning with their backs against the rusty cannon which are planted on the battlements of its walls; the Athenian peasant, as he drives his laden mule from Hymettus through the eastern gates of the town, still flings his small bundle of thyme and brushwood from the load which he brings on the mule's back, as a tribute to the Mussulman toll-gatherer, who sits at that entrance of the town; and a few days ago the cannon of the Acropolis fired the signal of the conclusion of the Turkish Ramazan-the last which will ever be celebrated in Athens. "Such alterations will probably have occurred within a few years in the general aspect of things in this place, that this description of its appearance at this time will then be perhaps considered as a chapter taken from the fabulous history of Athens, and its condition in a short period be as far removed from what it is at present, as from what it was in the most ancient times, under the old Cecropian monarchs, and at that obscure epoch, when its soil was trodden by the feet of the roving Pelasgi." p. 249. But few years were needed to produce those changes. In 1837, three great streets had been opened, the land on which commanded very high prices. Land in good situations was sold as high as six thousand dollars the acre. The rubbish was gradually disappearing, and good houses took the place of poor ones. A custom-house has now been built at the Peiraeus, a palace at Athens. The old walls have been removed. There are books in the shops, and lamps and windows and newspapers and a post-office, and the city contains more than 20,000 inhabitants. The unsettled state of the country and the swarms of robbers, by which it was infested after the revolution, have been frequently spoken of by those whose prejudices determined that Greece should not be renovated; but if we remember the utter desolation of the land by fire and sword, so that the difficulty of gaining subsistence was not small, and the demoral zing effect of such an irregular war as the Greeks carried on; and if besides, we but call to mind the scenes which followed the acknowledgment of our own independence, the unsettled and dissatisfied state of the public mind, the insurrections which occurred and those which were feared, and the anxiety which was caused in many a small village as the "regulars" appeared returning from the disbanded army, we shall not be astonished at the number of disturbances in Greece, nor wonder much that the traveller, who went alone even from Athens to the Peiræus, was in danger of "falling among thieves." One of the most interesting spots in Attica is the plain of Marathon. It is distant nearly a day's journey from Athens, and may be approached by at least three routes, by the seashore east of Pentelicus, over the mountain itself, and still farther west, through Cephisia. The second of these is the most interesting, for it leads by the quarries, and one sees upon the lofty face of the marble cliffs the marks of the ancient chisel, and strewed at their base the broken fragments which were not worth the trouble of transportation. At present the quarry lies unused; the demand for the marble not being enough to pay the expense of working. Besides this, the road carries you by some of the most picturesque scenery in this part of Greece. The panorama from the top of Pentelicus is of itself worth the trouble of the excursion, and the wild ravines by which you descend to Marathon are enough to inspire an imaginative people to create Dryads and Naiads to preside over the woods and fountains. The little village of Marathon, preserving nearly the same name as the ancient, and probably upon the same site, is situated on a small stream which flows down a valley on the western boundary of the plain. Coming down that narrow pass between the hills, the traveller sees stretched out before him, the memorable field. Its length is about six miles, its extreme width, a little more than two. The Persians debarked upon the northern part of the plain and the Greeks occupied the southern, where their flank was defended in part by marshes, and their rear by the declivities of Pentelicus. The plain too is narrower at this part, so as to allow a smaller compass for the manœuvres of the Persian hosts. No other ancient battle is more interesting to us than that, for nowhere else do we see so fully the contest of ideas. Athens was but nine hours from Marathon. A victory of the Persians was a victory over Greece, and a change of the whole current of opinion, of literature and civilization. We can imagine with what intensity of interest the Athenian citizens looked out over the worn pathway to descry the messenger who should bring tidings of victory, or the stragglers who should proclaim a defeat. The extraordinary honors which were paid to the slain, and to the survivors, show in what light the contest was regarded. The plain remains now nearly as it was left after the battle. No habitation is upon it, almost no sign of man; there are no marks by which the lapse of centuries has been chronicled, nothing of modern or temporary interest to divide the attention, and the traveller is left to the full impression of the recollections of antiquity. Towards the southern part of the plain is seen the tumulus, twenty or thirty feet high, which covers the remains. of the Platæans and slaves, and still farther south, on a rocky knoll in the midst of the marsh, fragments of the marble pillars which marked the sepulchre of the Athenians. Not even the field of Waterloo, with its immense mound supporting the Belgian lion, fills one with such awe as that silent plain with only the little tumulus to break the level horizon. Historians tell us that to this day, as in the time of Pausanias, the superstitious peasant believes the region to be haunted by spectral warriors, who course nightly over the solitary plain, and the shepherd is alarmed by the neighing of steeds and the shouts of battle. We intended to follow our travellers in their excursion through the Peloponnesus, less for the sake of its antiquities than for giving our readers some idea of the state of the country, but the length of our extracts warns us to be brief. Of the ruins out of Athens, the remains of the temple at Ægina has always attracted the traveller. Mr. Dodwell calls. it the most picturesque and interesting ruin in Greece. The little triangular island itself possesses some historical interest. It was the maritime rival of Athens, and from its situation directly in the line between Corinth and the islands of the Archipelago, and the rich cities of Asia, naturally attracted the trade which otherwise would have flowed up to the capital of Attica. The beautiful ruin of which we have spoken, is situated at the northeast corner of the island. "It stands on a gentle elevation near the sea, commanding a view of the Athenian coast, and of the Acropolis at Athens, and beyond them of the waving line traced by the mountain ranges of Pentelicus and Hymettus. Its site is sequestered and lonely. The ground is diversified by gray rocks overhung by tufted pines, and clusters of low shrubs, among which goats are feeding, some of them placing their forefeet on the boughs of the shrubs, and cropping the leaves with their bearded mouths. It is such a scene as this which proves that the religion of Greece knew how to avail itself of two things most conducive to a solemn and devotional effect, namely, silence and solitude." Athens and Attica, p. 268. Mr. Gifford and his companions, leaving Athens in a boat, proceeded to Ægina, and thence to Epidaurus, Napoli, Argos and Mycenae. We give his account of the ancient city of Agamemnon. After speaking of the cavern which is called both the Treasury of Athens and the Tomb of Agamemnon, but which, from a remark of Pausanias, he is inclined to consider the tombs of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus, he says: "From the second cavern a few minutes brought us to the Gate of Lions. Standing opposite to it, I could hardly believe it possible that it had existed for so many ages, notwithstanding the combined assaults of war and time. In its immediate neighborhood the walls are still entire, as well as in many other parts of the city; the lions, which are rampant, resting their forelegs against a low pillar, are, with the exception of their heads, perfect, though in the rudest style of sculpture. "From the spot where we stood, the scene was full of interest. We were exceedingly struck by the presence of these Cyclopean monuments-the oldest authenticated work which we had ever seen in any intelligible shape-and their exact accordance with the description of Pausanias; while the ancient and jealous city of Argos, backed by its commanding citadel, seemed still to frown, at the distance of seven or eight miles, on the ruin of its annihilated rivals! There was not a sound to disturb the extreme solitude of a place once the wealthy capital of a powerful state; the conqueror of Troy was dust; his city rubbish; but his name and memory were as fresh as ever. This was the very scene to illustrate the full force of Horace's beautiful allusion: Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Hor. Od. IV. 9. "But for the magic of the Grecian muse, the victors and the vanquished would have been lost in oblivion, and their monuments unintelligible ruins. Nor must we forget our obligation to the humbler labors of Pausanias; without such a guide, had any person stumbled on these mighty remains, the question of what they had been would simply afford matter of vague discussion to the antiquary, without exciting those feelings of historical reality, and that corresponding pleasure, which they now kindle even in the least enthusiastic. The Gate of Lions is choked with rubbish; but I managed, on my hands and knees, to crawl through a narrow opening, along the very spot by which the King of men had marched to accomplish the fate of Ilium, and had returned triumphant, only to be the victim of a domestic tragedy, which has for ages interested the feelings of mankind.” Gifford, 181. How different the feelings with which one visits the modern ruins of Tripolitza. This ill-fated city was the scene of some of the fearful atrocities of the Greek revolution. When taken by the Greeks under Colocotroni, the Turks were slaughtered by thousands, and when subsequently,-after having, by a gradual influx of people from all parts, become the most important and populous town in Greece, numbering 30,000 inhabitants, -it was retaken by the Turks, the inhabitants that remained (at the approach of the army all fled who could get away) were butchered or carried into slavery, and the whole city devoted to the flames.* Mr. Gifford arrived there in the night, and gives an interesting description of it, which we are obliged to omit. From Tripolitza the travellers proceeded south to Sparta, and found there an illustration of a remark of Thucydides, that if Sparta and Athens should be destroyed, the latter would, from the superior magnificence of its ruins, be supposed to have been the greater state of the two. Nothing can be truer. No ruins mark the situation of ancient Lacedemon-seges ubi Sparta. Even the foundations of a small temple, which are pointed out, and the theatre excavated from the side of a ploughed hill, belong not to the "Sparta of Menelaus, of Leonidas, of Greece, but to the modern Roman town, which has also disappeared in the lapse of ages." The Eurotas flows there still, and the wild and turbulent Mainotes rudely cultivate the fertile plains. Thence the travellers proceeded to Messene and along the western shore of the Morea by Phygaleia, across the Alpheus to Olympia, the scene of the sacred triumphs, and to Pyrgo on the sea, where they embarked to meet the English steam-boat at Zante. Had we not already drawn too copiously from the volumes before us, we should like to dwell a little longer on the character of the modern Greek, so like in its great features to that of his acute and flexible ancestor two thousand years ago, so unchanged by centuries of ignorance, degradation and slavery,—and to * See Howe's Greek Revolution. |